


Oh, The Thief Of Destiny

by jentaro



Category: Black Mirror, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: Body Horror, Depictions of Death, Drug Use, F/M, M/M, i just want them to be happy.., unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-07 00:44:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17355761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jentaro/pseuds/jentaro
Summary: This time would be different. This time, Stefan is choosing to worship him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure why my note at the beginning of this erased itself and i 100% forgot what it said but
> 
>  
> 
> [please listen to this playlist i made its very gay](https://open.spotify.com/user/jentayro/playlist/46AkKdnOt4fFAKskLLThBo?si=s340Zqb_ReWGz2dz4LHYjw)
> 
>  
> 
> it’s very good and ur all welcome

“We’ve met before.” It's deja-vu about a hundred times over, having those words come out of his mouth in a confused haze while seeing Stefan for the first time. It isn’t the first time, it _can’t_ be the first time. Not with the way everyone in the room is finishing each other's sentences left and right like his mum watching daytime quiz programmes and parroting the hosts’ catchphrases. The scene is familiar, sitting in front of his computer with his headphones on. 

Except, this is _different_. This is a vivid dream that he can’t quite grasp the tendrils of once his eyes open in the morning only to catch a subconscious detail of three weeks later. “We’ve met before?” After the first time, it isn’t a question, it’s a statement. Period. They have met before many, _many_ times. Colin, frankly, has met everyone billions of times, but nobody was ever quite _aware_ of that. Nobody had ever realized the repetition had them in an unbreakable cycle that kept on circling back over and over until something changed. 

String theory, multiple universes, multiple timelines crisscrossing until they were looping around one another and intersecting and crashing and colliding and getting everyone and everything all fucked up. All proper nasty business when one is trying to get the best possible ending by blindly giving up control to fate. Every choice was a butterfly effect of possibilities, and staring at Stefan Butler and shaking his hand at an awkward angle was the common thread that all of these simultaneous timelines shared, except perhaps the first one where Colin didn’t say that they had met before. 

For all he knows this could be the first time, and that his head was mistaking him for a previous acquaintance. His gut instinct is telling him this is not the first time, and he had never been led astray before by following instinct.

Retract those last few steps of thought, only one other person he had met had realized it—not Stefan, who he kept crossing paths with. Kitty, of course. Every single timeline spanning the years they had known each other, they had both known and _still_ know. Their paths are entwined, and they knew each other inside and out. Kitty had introduced him to the concept of The Hole in the first place, had been the one to lead him out of it the first few times. Something she had discovered while doing her own art, stuck in a rut and needing to escape. The goddamned Hole.

A place that Colin feels like Stefan is stuck in as a base personality trait. From the moment he had laid eyes on this anxious, likely improperly medicated ball of pure nervous energy, Colin knew that he would have to be ready to open Stefan’s eyes a trillion times.

“We’ve met before?”

Walking in after it’s too late, and Stefan has murdered his father.

Inviting getting smashed over the head with a blunt object rather than getting stabbed (and thank fucking Christ that Stefan had listened, because stabbings really were the worst way to go). 

Jumping off the balcony after watching Stefan jump over one too many times, when he was too scared to do it. 

_“We’ve met before.”_

_“No…”_

_“Yes we have, and I told you I’d see you around.”_

Waking up with his face cradled to Kitty’s chest, the remnants of a bad dream of dying again. Well, not necessarily a bad dream, it was usually a conscious choice, always with the knowledge that he would be alive elsewhere. Death in gruesome ways, or in drug fueled ways, it didn’t really matter. Over and over and waking up with the only person on earth who understood, who had also been caught up in her own choices and timelines. She had made her own sacrifices billions of times, and Colin knew it and was grateful for it. That she chose him, that she had kept little Pearl, and so many other choices that she shared with him. Choices that in another timeline would spell misery for Colin, likely.

Colin thought they would be alone with the truth, that nobody besides himself and Kitty would ever truly listen close enough to hear the code that was absolutely fucking _everywhere_. 

But, well, “We’ve met before,” and for a beat, Colin is almost sick of saying it, but what happens next is always a blast. 

Colin shows Stefan Nohzdyve, and Stefan explains his buffer error for the trillionth time once it happens. It shakes him to his core the first time, to have Stefan seemingly reach into his head and pluck out the words, the eyeball sprite overshooting the video memory and causing the buffer error. 

After the first, fresh timeline, Colin does his absolute best to one up him. He’s compelled to step back and have himself read Bandersnatch months before they meet in many tangents, only to have it come in handy to let Stefan know he had done his research. It’s cheeky, but necessary so that the next time they meet? It’s not a question, it’s a statement. They have met before, and it won’t be the last time of course, but _this_ time is special, and Colin is ready for Bandersnatch to unfurl its roots into his skull.

And finally, _finally_ there is the recognition, even if Stefan doesn’t say it aloud. Yes, they have met. Stefan has played all of his games, which is _quite_ flattering when Colin knows him. How many of those games were released in this timeline? How many games has Colin made in other timelines that he wouldn’t be able to fathom? 

The choices Colin made here could be different in other places, other times. Where the impossible for here would be possible there. Where Colin would have access to technology that would take this timeline _decades_ to achieve and improve upon. To think of what he is accomplishing elsewhere at this very instant while currently he’s hand coding every single smooth framerate transition of each sprite as the runtime randomization of good items and bad items and obstacles takes trial and error and days of time and effort. Other Colin, the billion and trillion and infinitely more productive versions of himself, would find it amusing that he was caught in his own brain like this.

Stefan is here though, _now_ , and his game looks and sounds fucking _brilliant_ for a first timer. 

This time though, in Thakur’s office, this choice seems wholly unfamiliar. It’s ...unscripted. Almost like having two choices caused too much of a ruckus in either direction. Like the dissatisfaction of existence running in circles was too much, and he had to break the chain and add a new link to it.

“So, come on. What’s your answer?” Thakur asks for the eight hundredth time this morning, probably. 

Colin can feel the tension like a wound spring, winding tighter as Stefan plays around with the outcomes in his head. Maybe he had taken ‘try again’ far too literally, and kept trying and trying with the only choices he knew—the only ones that were predetermined since his conception, rather. 

“Right, um, actually, I will say yes if you agree to my one condition,” Stefan says as Colin puts down the Bandersnatch book. He’s looking at him, Colin can feel it, but he only glances briefly at him before looking at Mohan. 

“Yeah yeah, what is it?” 

Colin looks back at Stefan again, who side-eyes him with a determination that is peculiar of him. Stefan feels like a familiar ghost that haunts the hallways of his mind, but it’s almost like the ghost has finally realized that it doesn’t have to roam the same pathway, the same bedrooms. It can be free to move elsewhere and make decisions for itself that don’t revolve around the familiarity of knocking the same glass of water off a night table and expecting that the water won’t end up somewhere else besides soaking into the carpet.

Almost like Stefan has finally, _finally_ broken free of waiting for the choice to be made for him. Instead of a d20 of decisions ending badly, the die landed on the pointed tip edge and stayed upright. Or rolled onto the floor and the person who picked it up said it was a nat 20 plus their insane modifier to kick the roll up to a 27 to finally beat fate’s DC, or what _ever_ the fuck.

“I will do the game for you, but, well...” It’s still with the same sort of nervous tone that Colin expects of him. Some things don’t change, and it is a fond thought to have. “I will come here to work, but I—I don’t really want a um,” Stefan makes motion with his fingers, gesturing to his own head, “I-it’s all up in here, and if it is to get done right, I don’t—I don’t really want a team?” 

“That’s mental,” Thakur says with a quick, forced laugh, reaching for the brick of material that will be worked with. “If I had a hundred copies of this, I could paper-mâché myself a whole new _house_ to live in Stefan, and it would still probably take half the time it would for you to do something this complex _alone_. Why wouldn’t you want a team to help condense all of that material for you?”

“I don’t _want_ a team. I will work here, but it’s me, and… and Colin?” 

They have met before, but never quite like this. This feels like it was not part of the plan, but well, reality is a social construct. And this timeline is shaping up to be a _great_ timeline. Colin can fucking _feel_ it. It’s different this time, and that’s completely and utterly _thrilling_. It’s a notion that almost makes him seize up, but his voice stays the same, even tone as he says, “You sure about that, yeah? It’s in your head, you said it yourself. How d’you know I can do it justice?” Leaving it to him. This is Stefan’s story, his own path to alter.

“Well, um, mostly me I suppose if you’re not alright with it—”

“Stefan, I am not the one you need to convince,” Colin says, fully looking at him and making it clear that if this was the choice he was making, he couldn’t accept no for an answer. If he wanted to change the outcome, he had to follow through. 

“Colin is on hand yeah, but he has his own projects he’s working on.” A fair point from Mohan, but even though it’s a game that is in its infancy, Nohzdyve wouldn’t take long to finish, not really. Especially since he had lived it’s conceptual period over and over enough times to know the code inside and out. 

“He’s doing it alone, and I can do mine the same, but Colin—Colin you’ve _read_ the book, you said you had gotten _all_ of the endings,” Stefan sounds almost frantic as he says it, but missing the key detail that he hadn’t even gotten the chance to say it this time around. “I spent a decade and a quarter with this book and I have already narrowed it down as much as I can while trying to do it justice. I don’t need people who don’t understand the narrative to water it down any more than it has already been,” said with conviction, with a certainty that is surely uncharacteristic. “I respect everything you are offering, Mr. Thakur, but if I am to accept your interest in the game and work in this office, I have to make _all_ of the decisions. I can’t let someone else cut content and _rush_ it to completion.” Not again.

__Mohan looks between the two of them, and settles on Colin in silent exasperation, to which he himself shrugs and says, “The lad’s got a point, if you want a hit from a concept piece, you have to let it happen. It’s not some action game that can be cobbled together by six people whose expertise lay in making sure the gun shoots and then setting up a story around it like they’re slapping together book reports the night before an assignment is due by reading the table of contents. It’s more delicate and intricate, and I suppose I don’t mind pitching in if Stefan needs it.”_ _

__“It’s _still_ absolutely bonkers,” Mohan says as he hunches over, making a loose fist and softly tapping the desk with it. “If that’s what you want, making it here but with no team but the occasional Col’, I can give you a little bit of leeway I suppose. The demo looks brilliant, but I need finished code, _completely_ finished no later than September 12th, right?”_ _

__“Of—of course,” Stefan says, visibly surprised to see it worked, but he smiles and shakes hands with Mohan. “I’m going to have to go home and get my work things together…”_ _

__“That’s fine, work day is already almost half up anyway. We can start fresh tomorrow, get you set up and get your contract agreement all crossed Ts and dotted Is.”_ _

__The kid Satpal comes in to hand over the cigs and the chocolate treat to Mohan, and Colin takes the liberty of walking out of the office with Stefan in tow like a nervous duckling having imprinted on him. It’s always a gamble as to when to give Stefan hints that he _knows_ about the looping and all the trying again, but for now he plays it safe and smoothly slips into the next usual thread of conversation._ _

__“So what d’you—“_ _

__“Do you have any music recommendations?”_ _

__Spoken at the same time, and enough to make him stop in his tracks for a brief moment. “How’d you know I was just about to ask what you listen to?” It makes him wonder if he doesn’t remember this timeline, if it had happened before, Stefan asking first. It’s just been said with such a practiced ease that it has to be rehearsed a million times in practical application, but it doesn’t feel familiar._ _

__“Oh, um, I figured you would know some good music to help get into the flow.”_ _

__“Yeah…” Colin says, sitting back down at his desk and reaching for a piece of spare paper and grabbing a pen. “Lots of recommendations, actually. You look like you listen to Thompson Twins, can’t have that.” Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but to give inspiration and let the mind wander into being pure focused? Different stuff would be needed._ _

__“Oh um—”_ _

__“It’s a joke, no worries,” said a bit flatly, wanting to play this timeline safe to see where it went. It takes only a few scratches of his pen to have a decent sized list, handing it over and realizing he usually made Stefan do the writing. But, call it a freebie. “Run along now, I’ll see you tomorrow yeah?”_ _

__“Right, thank you Colin,” Stefan says softly, giving him a look that was some sort of hopeful. For what, he’s not quite sure, but it would be incredibly interesting to see what choices Stefan would be making this go around. Diverging as early as possible to create a different result might actually work this time._ _

__Giving him a two finger salute, Colin turns back to his desk and picks up another rollup, lighting it as he focuses again on fixing the code of Nohzdyve. It takes an extended moment for him to leave, but that’s fine, doesn’t really pull at Colin’s nerves much. If anything, it’s what he’s been waiting for, Stefan living for himself and choosing the narrative._ _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it turns out I am a goddamn sham and one of the songs I had on my playlist was in fact not from before October of '84 but it's too late to remove it so I'll just go silently scream into the sun. I will be adding music periodically and now that I've broken my own date restriction rule I might say to hell with it and just put whatever I want on there :/ or make a separate one. We'll see!
> 
> Anyway, I'm blown away by so many straight up amazing comments and praise, I love y'all so much!!!! I am so glad that people are enjoying this so far! It's a little bit slow right now, but I'm gonna get into That Good Shit soon 8^) Also in this house? We love and respect Kitty and I'm Tired™ of seeing her done so wrong. Thx for coming to my theodore talk! 
> 
> Quick note about this chapter, there are some depictions of gore, but nothing too heavy. I am just giving a heads up in case anyone is squeamish. It will be pretty obvious where it is, and it's not going to completely come out of nowhere.

The morning is mild, the pending wet heat of the day not quite rising yet. The sky is threatening rain per usual, but the air has a sweet note to it for once. Almost like the overnight dew evaporating was carrying the scent of nature up with it, and Colin truly wished he could stop and smell the roses. Well, the one rose bush that Kitty tended to so fervently on the main balcony of their flat; the city below didn’t have quite as much nature to it these days as developments took over. Lack of nature aside, if there was anything he could count on, it was that she kept close care of her plants no matter what the timeline was. A bit of consistency that was genuine, heartwarming even in a universe filled with unrest and sheer horrors.

Of course though, no time to appreciate their little slice of nature in the city with _so_ much to do today. Not that Colin knew what was on the itinerary for the day, but he didn’t want to be late going into the office this morning. If anything, Colin wanted to see how Stefan was adjusting to his first day without giving in to the temptation of the predetermined, or if this opened up a new set of choices for him that would lead down the same destructive path. He’s sure he will find out soon enough, but for now he savors this last moment of peace for the day.

Picking up his progeny from her high chair, he gently jiggles her to make her laugh before planting a smooch right on her delicate head, just below the pastel yellow stretch headband and on her forehead. Another one, and a few more, and then she goes right back in the chair while Kitty comes over with her breakfast. Such a gorgeous pair they make, and Kitty herself being the unexpected mother figure she hadn’t known she could be. Especially with her own troubled past and the lack of parental care she had experienced. Perhaps part of her wanted to do better by being there for their wonderful little plump Sunday roast of a child like she hadn’t been in other timelines. Or perhaps it was because she hadn’t had any good examples growing up and she wanted to put a little bit of good into the world.

Sometimes, well, Kitty had been an apathetic parent. And sometimes she had been depressed after giving birth like most suburban mothers these days seemed to be. Sometimes it was just Colin up during Pearl’s long nights while Kitty cried to herself in the bedroom, seemingly paralyzed by too much responsibility. Sometimes Pearl didn’t exist at all, or had never made it out of the womb. Sometimes they were both relieved, sometimes they were crushed, or some mix of the two. But every single moment of every thread of the universe they co-existed on, Kitty and him had been through it all _together_. And in those moments where they recognize and realize the luck of the good timelines? It works.

This moment is no different as Kitty sits on a chair pulled close, elbow propped on the kitchen table with a tiny spoon about to be heaped with the awful tasting mushy food infants were forced to eat. The clink of the metal against glass is harsh on his ears, and even Kitty winces as she asks, “Really, who blends carrots and boiled chicken?”

“A sadist who gets off on puréeing together the most bland foods possible in the name of sound nutrition,” Colin says as he crouches down closer to Pearl’s level, at Kitty’s side. “I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t want to eat it.” Sincere sounding words based in the most sarcastic part of his soul.

“It’s horrid, but can’t exactly serve her something easy like cereal until she’s got teeth I think the pediatrician said.”

“Come on now Pearlie, it’s not so bad,” Colin says, opening his mouth and giving Kitty a side glance to get her on board his scheme.

“You’ll regret this,” said with a quiet chuckle a moment before she makes an excited little gasp directed toward Pearl, flying the spoon close to her mouth but then swooping it into Colin’s instead.

“Mmm,” hummed out very exaggerated as he swallows the mess. “That is absolutely _rancid_ , but it’s _so_ good for you.” Taking the spoon and the jar from Kitty for a moment, he scoops a bit more onto the utensil, moving it to just outside Pearl’s closed mouth. “Come on now button, open up for da’?”

“She’s going to spit it out,” Kitty says, leaning forward on her chair to rest her chin on Colin’s shoulder, the sides of their heads touching. “Isn’t that right you little demon?” He can feel Kitty’s arm snaking around the middle of his back, the touch comforting in raw moments like this when he’s not so sure about being a parent himself. Sometimes, it feels like they’re still frazzled teens, but now with the addition of money. Money, and decades of life experience packed into much less time depending on when and where they were in the universe.

“A demon who is going to eat her breakfast for daddy, surely. Last one to open their mouth is a rotten egg,” Colin says as he opens his own, and miraculously, Pearl does too, which Colin uses the opportunity to gently push the spoon into her mouth finally while Kitty shakes with her laughter, draped across him. “Good work! Your mum is the rotten egg now.”

“Oh, am I?” She playfully scratches at his side through his shirt, then moving back enough so she can reach around to take the spoon and the jar back. “I’ve always been the rotten one, actually,” it’s said in jest, the moment still light while she leans in to peck him on the cheek. “Now, mummy will finish the devil’s breakfast, go on, out.”

“If you insist,” Colin says as he stands and steps away from the scene and heads for the door, grabbing his keys on the way out while he listens to Kitty softly pleading with Pearl to please eat another bite.

It’s a quick walk over to the building the Tuckersoft office floor resides in, thankfully. The office population is sparse when he arrives, just a few early morning souls hounding the coffee pot in the cramped kitchenette. It’s a good thing he had already grabbed his morning cup at home when he had woken up, no desire to really chat with anyone. In the loosest sense of the word possible, of course.

The unfortunate taste of mash baby food is still present on his tongue however, even lingering under the taste of tobacco from the smoke he’d had on the way over. Not that it matters much, he’s sure it will be forgotten once this day truly commences.

 

* * *

 

Stefan gets to the office a bit after Thakur steps in (and immediately beelines for Colin to take the piss out of him for showing up before half ten). He is a welcome sight with a gin-branded cardboard box of his own equipment and a shoulder bag no doubt full of game notes with his eyes darting around as if he has no idea what to do with himself. Colin supposes he doesn’t, but Mohan had spent the better part of an hour yesterday rearranging furniture around so that Stefan’s desk would be near his in case he needed help on Bandersnatch.

He catches Stefan’s eye finally and nods him over, taking his headphones off as he stands to greet him. “Seems you’ll be sitting ‘round me for now, right here.” Pointing to an adjacent desk with the seat back to the window, Colin watches how Stefan seems to relax just a little bit more. He had suggested it to Thakur, sure, but only he knew it as a measure for Stefan to be a bit more comfortable and a little less paranoid that people would be watching his movements. Of course, there was still room for that, but it gave Stefan eyes on the room, something that Colin used to need. He’d learned to tune out other people completely long ago, but Stefan seemed to still be too new at this to figure it out.

“Oh, right,” Stefan says, putting his box down, fingers wringing the sleeves of his sweater. “Thank you…” He looks like he wants to say something else for a beat, but the moment comes and goes with Stefan’s mouth glued shut with anxiety.

“No trouble. But, bossman wanted you to head into his dungeon once you got here, better not keep him waiting,” Colin says, sitting back down at his own desk and pointing toward Thakur’s door. There will be time to talk later once Stefan has his paperwork in order, of course. “I’ll be here once you get settled in, we can talk shop.”

It’s charming how Stefan kind of looks like a lost deer, looking around for a moment. In a flash, he remembers a time and space where Stefan had opened up the door of his house and had given him a look like this before it had turned panicked and he had collapsed sobbing into his arms with a corpse behind him. It feels like a vivid dream coming back so suddenly into his mind, but hopefully this time nobody had to die.

Stefan had held onto him for what seemed like hours in that timeline while Colin debated how to handle it. His sweatshirt had been soft, recently washed and smelling like a fresh summer breeze even with the smell of blood in the air. Soft, well worn cotton, and Colin has felt every single little pill of the fabric on the surface under his hands as he had held him. A memory that could have equally been the result of pulling at the fabric of a throw blanket as he laid around his flat high out of his mind, but the torso underneath was solid and shuddering with heaving cries from a veritable lifetime spent without the cherished touch of a caring soul. Platonic, parental, or romantic.

Stefan had been _lonely_ for so long, frustrated without his mother’s love and with a father who had no idea how to relate to him besides being the guilt-laden purse strings. No friends, nobody who had ever shared a comforting space with him as a confidant or as a significant other. In that life, Colin had at least been there to physically hold the shattered pieces of a person who had never gotten over trauma nor forgiven his out-of-touch father. Colin hadn’t been followed that time, and neither of them had jumped. Stefan hadn’t been given the knowledge to set him free, instead stuck in The Hole and off his medication. It helped when he did take it, but it sucked the creativity right out of him by making him more docile to being guided by suggestion and second guesses. When he was off, that’s when the delusions ramped up to 11, and he ended up murdering his father while creating the game of the year.

He hadn’t called the police that time, instead helping chop up the body and dispose of it properly after he had gotten Stefan to calm down. Took a bit of talking until his voice was hoarse—something Colin was _not_ good at in the first place—to get him to taper off. Of course in the end he had been pinned as an accessory to murder and was rotting in a penitentiary somewhere, but they had gone off and finished Bandersnatch for publication, and it had gotten rave reviews before being pulled.

If Colin tries hard, he can remember the feeling of the wood grain in the handle of the saw from the tool shed around the back of the house, he can hear the separation of bone—feel the teeth of the dull jagged blade tearing into muscle. The feel of blood running through his fingers and landing in the sink, the unpleasant gore on his hands… It’s the smell of them using hydrogen peroxide to ruin the blood spills that sticks with him. Too clean; it bubbles under his fingertips, fizzles under his fingernails.

In the aftermath, Stefan had sat down with him after finishing the code for the final path, and they had held hands in silence until the morning where they had gone into the Tuckersoft office that morning and hand delivered the final, finished code. It went to playtest, to the publisher, and was released just in time for the holiday season. Of course, the murder was discovered one way or another, that bit was fuzzy in an already hazy memory.

It repeats in his head like the same line of a song on a skipping record. They had held hands, sitting at Stefan’s computer with the bed pulled away from the wall so Colin could sit without needing to go back downstairs for a chair. When it was clear Stefan was exhausted, Colin had taken over and put the finishing touches on, booted it up, and it _worked_. No crash on the home screen, smooth playthrough up to the new path, and bug free to the finish. And then they had laid together in silence, hands clasped over Colin’s stomach with Stefan at his side. Breathing in sync, pressed together comfortably with his other arm periodically around Stefan’s shoulders and a cigarette burning away with the godforsaken glass ashtray somewhere by his head. He’s not sure from there what happened from then until morning.

A whisper of a memory, one that Colin is struggling to place. Every timeline existed simultaneously at all times, because time was entirely subjective. But _when_ had it taken place? How long ago had that been the reality, now distant to this one? He has no idea, but it’s not something to stress over. Besides, it’s too early to tell without living this timeline, but Colin is hoping things really have changed this time. That Stefan can keep it together long enough to put the game out and have it be good without any sacrifice.

Sitting at his desk like this all spaced out, Colin nearly jumps out of his skin when Thakur claps a hand down on top of his shoulder and says, “Earth to Colin ya’ fuckin’ spaceman.”

“You got anything better to do yeah?”

“No, I don’t. You’re stiller than a statue though, giving off some _serious_ serial killer energy.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” Colin says, grabbing for a cigarette and lighting up. “Give Stefan the paper tour yet?”

“Yeah yeah, we’re all set and straight now. But I’ve got a meeting with those big little guys up at the tower, show him around the office?” Mohan says as Stefan shuffles past to where his desk is to start unpacking.

“Actually, I sort of—” Interrupting them still doesn’t seem to be Stefan’s strong suit, but once Colin and Mohan look at him, he continues, “I um, sort of just want to get to work? If you don’t mind…”

Colin looks over, then back at Mohan and one shouldered shrugs as he says, “Fair enough, can do it later anyway. Work to be done, all that.”

Thakur nods seemingly with his whole upper body, chuckling in the way he always did. “Busybodies, I get it. I’m off, then. Make some games.”

Leaving the two of them alone. Well, relatively, considering there’s other bodies in the office. Colin exhales smoke as he says, “If you need me, give me a shout, yeah?” Leaving it up to him once again to interact. This is Stefan’s chance to make it work with a good outcome, and if he needed help? Colin would be right there. For now, he’s got to backtrack on some Nohzdyve code and iron out the errors.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to make chapter 3 one much longer than this, but my brain took a U-turn and I ended up writing in something different completely which is totally cool. anyway, thanks to all you fine people who keep leaving me super awesome and nice comments, I love u.
> 
> anyway, just wanted to mention that there's some light body horror stuff here. nothing too bad, but worth mentioning so you can brace yourselves. also, it's got some unreality going on and deliberate brainfucky stuff so if that's another thing that you gotta prepare for, I also wanted to give a heads up on that.
> 
> yeah! gonna be some cool shit coming up soon and my rating is gonna shoot right on up. thanks again everyone and enjoy this chapter please :^)
> 
> i can also be found on tumblr @ jennyloggins and on twitter @somegarbageisok

Watching Stefan work is… fascinating. Watching his creative process is absolutely mesmerizing. After a very silent first week of Stefan writing down _whatever_ it was that he was writing down in his notebook and doing more preliminary coding work to set forward work on the paths, he had gotten permission to start taping up pages on the windows behind him. With the vertical blinds opened all the way to either side, the amount of content laid out was insane.

Of course, it started with just a few at first, just so he had more space to work with. But it was starting to snake toward Colin’s bleak corner and into his window space. Didn’t really bother him too much, he wasn’t one to stare out of the windows, but watching Stefan is _fascinating_. All of his nervous little tics, the quiet mumbling as he scratches away on his notebook paper making pathways branch and branch until he needs more paper. The novel has a narrative that seems like it’s lightyears away from the here and now, to be made into a video game is so ambitious of a project that it’s a gamble whether or not Stefan would finish by the middle of September. Seeing this, it’s a wonder it ever got finished at all, and it’s clear how Stefan could lose his mind to it.

But in the now, sometimes he sits there and flips back and forth in the book, making notes and writing his paragraphs. Getting it all together, putting the narrative down in a condensed form that was different from the paper maze on the windows. Already like vines, creeping up and strangling Stefan even from the start. Colin can faintly remember standing in Stefan’s bedroom, staring at the walls and the ceiling with these thick branches built of reams of paper coiling around until he felt claustrophobic just looking at them. 

Nothing to quite nip in the bud yet, since the paper trail wasn’t quite so large now, but it might do good to check in. Something he hadn’t thought was necessary until now, but the repetition of the same few months was getting a bit tiresome. He knew in other timelines, time marched on regardless of the outcome, but this current iteration kept circling around and around back to the same spot and personally, Colin is getting sick to absolute death of it.

Making up his mind about indirectly intervening on this spectacle, he waits for the right moment. Colin is quite tired of looking at Nohzdyve’s code anyway, so he sighs and lights up a smoke after a minute or so more of picking at the code. Tilting his head back, he leans back in his chair more, watching Stefan upside down. Staring at the screen, fiddling with a pen in one hand and chewing on the cuticle of his other hand’s thumb discreetly. He can see the effect of Stefan’s leg bouncing up and down, deep in concentration and in his zone that is amazing to see. Especially in a semi-crowded office where Colin would think Stefan is too nervous around others to really focus. 

Biting his skin, then letting his hand down, writing on a piece of notebook paper, pen down, gently tug on the earlobe when pushing his hand up to his face, start typing, rinse, repeat. The pattern was rhythmic, almost, with very little variation to it and stretching across multiple minutes at a time. Not manic, definitely a slow burn process of fiddling with stuff and dealing with scattered thoughts to try and perfectly knit together a finished result to be consumed by _thousands_ , if not millions now that home computers and video games were more popular than ever. No pressure.

Stefan was standing upright under it so far, knowing that it’s going to take time and seeming like now more than ever he’s pacing himself. Tug on the earlobe, a bit of typing, licking his lips to counteract the incredibly dry air of the office building even in the heat of summer. 

Nobody here had approached him after first day’s pleasantries, and though Colin said they could talk shop, Stefan hadn’t sought him out. Not yet, though he had seen the glances toward him through the reflection of his dusty computer monitor, and _yes_ Colin was busy watching the reflection rather than working on Nohzdyve, what of it? He could program it in his sleep now with the number of times he had written and improved upon the code over many lifetimes. 

Today was about being a bit more overt in his attention though. Head still tilted back, glasses slipping up his face a bit as he watched Stefan bite at his cuticles and play with the pen in the other hand. There he was, writing in his notebook again, flipping the page and tearing out another and writing on that one, then turning around opposite of where Colin was watching like a peeping Tom in the bushes, taping it up onto the window. Another mess of choices opening up from another choice on another path.

Adding paths as they came to him. 

An echo of an important path, and Colin sitting on Thakur’s grimy office couch watching Stefan say he can do it if he just has the weekend which is where it all goes downhill. Adding a last minute path that’s important, but one that had barely made it in.

Maybe Stefan was truly choosing his own adventure, maybe he was getting out of his rut for good with this one. Adding a path that was central to getting out of misery and creating his own ending where those who controlled him had failed.

Maybe Stefan _had_ been set free with the knowledge that Colin had passed onto him. It’s hard to forget something so stupid and idiotic as being hopped up on acid, having a rant about being controlled, then triple dog daring Stefan to jump off the balcony, or himself going over. He doesn’t doubt the existence of multiple realities for even a nanosecond, absolutely not. In one place and time, they walk on air together, they hold hands and fly away from the world and from all responsibility. In several others, they jump together and they die together. The cold kiss of a metal freight shipping container as his neck snaps and his organs burst and his bones shatter and he wakes up once again to being safe and warm in bed, wrapped up with Kitty.

Always back to the start, always with Kitty waking up and gently pushing her fingers through his hair asking, “Again?”

“Yeah.” Quiet in his response, clinging.

It’s happened so many times that it shouldn’t be surprising, and Colin should be used to it. But he’s not, and he doesn’t think he ever will be. Dying hurt, and it didn’t quite faze him anymore in the sense that he wasn’t afraid of the act itself. It was the aftermath. Being absent, alone in purgatory without Kitty, without Stefan, without a single other soul. Standing alone in nothingness, hearing his own breath echo back in wait for something, _anything_. A fraction of a moment in time that took a trillion years to cycle him back into another timeline, seemingly. Not reincarnation, but something _else_. Something far more fucked up, that nobody else could imagine on this earth. 

Kitty had been a godsend when Colin had realized she _knew_ , and once they had connected over it with each other, she still continued to be his rock, really. She _understood_ , and she was going through her own loops just the same and yet completely differently. They could spend days talking about it, and have, and will continue to do so. Since they were no longer part of the algorithm, they had figured out that really, they could do whatever they wanted. And they _had_.

Robbing banks was fun, moreso when they got away with it. Killing self important capitalist pigs had been fun the first few times until playing God had gotten to be too much responsibility, never _not_ worth it though. Of course there was also the separation of jail, the difference of life sentences versus the death penalty. Making plans to break out of prison together and being successful. Or not. Or one of them and not the other. Or _whatever_. There had been so many lines, so many realities that were completely different. So many different time periods lived in which was a whole other different tangent to go on later. 

And yet in all of those timelines, even in the ones with Kitty by his side, it felt like something was missing. Something, or someone, and he could never figure it out. Not until he had met Stefan, who was so blissfully unaware of the waves he had made in Colin’s life. In his other realities and alternate pathways. Until seemingly now, as he worked and as Colin watched his gears turning. Enrapturing to watch. 

Especially now, Stefan taping up his material on the glass so it’s not lost in an unorganized pile on his desk. The lack of ordinary organization being key to his process, and Colin getting to witness it firsthand is utterly fascinating. Mesmerizing. 

“Um, do you need something? You’ve been ...staring. S-since about half eleven,” Stefan asks from where he is at the window, framed by the cloudy sky and the almost eerily unnatural looking light from outside. Half the time the windows looked opaque because of how far up they were and how few and far between sunny days were, but right now it’s just _perfect_. Like a halo around Stefan, but not angelic in the _slightest_. It’s wicked in a sense, but it _fits_.

“Was I? Sorry ‘bout that, was lightyears away,” Colin says, finally sitting back upright and cracking his back in the process. “Aching like a granny over here, Christ.” Bones finished popping like geriatric, Colin turns around in his chair so he’s facing Stefan. “What time is it now?” 

“Close to twelve now I think,” Stefan says a bit softly, looking around his desk for a clock. Finally locating one, he reads it off even quieter, “Eleven forty-nine…” Then looking back at Colin, he speaks up, “Ten before, why?”

Twenty minutes lost to admiration? A likely story, considering himself. “Join me for lunch? We never got to have a chat about Bandersnatch, and you were the one that wanted to work with me on it per your conditions on working in the office. I’ve been curious about it, but didn’t want to upset the process.”

It takes Stefan a few moments to answer, and in those moments Colin can see him forming a debate team with himself. It’s the higher control, no doubt, still trying to make his choices for him. Almost free from the chains of predetermined decisiveness forced upon him, but not quite. He needed a different push, perhaps? “I um, I have a lot of work to do here, can I explain it when you’re back?”

Ah, the indecisive route to fuck with the binary of choices. Forcing in a third path for Colin to make the choice, possibly. A bit different from the confident need to make his choice a reality by convincing Thakur to have him work here on his own terms. “You’re not hungry?”

And _there_ it is. The fire and realization of the situation in his eyes, energized almost suddenly, wringing the sleeves of his sweater with his fingers as he looks him in the eye and says, “Actually, I am. Skipped breakfast for the bus, dad wasn’t happy about that.” A bit of a weak, forced laugh at the end, one that Stefan looks like he regrets immediately by the way his head is bent, looking away. But he looks back up and rocks for a moment on his heels, “I don’t know much around here, though.”

“There’s a spot ‘round the corner with some decent lunch,” Colin says, slightly muffled by the cigarette he’s lighting up, the sound of the flick of the lighter crisp between them. Stefan is at full attention watching him, and Colin catches his eyes, staring for a moment and wondering how this was going to go. “Come on then.” 

Nodding toward the elevator, they make their way over, Colin pushing the button when Stefan clears his throat politely into a closed fist and then asks, “Is it a pub?”

An odd question to be asked, but knowing Stefan there has to be a good reason he’s asking since he’s not the type to drink. “Just a shop counter with some tables inside. Why, did you want to go to one? There’s a few ‘round the other corner if you did.” 

“Oh, _no_ , sorry,” Stefan says, putting his hands out in front of himself as if pumping the brakes on that idea entirely. “Was gonna say I’d rather not if it is.”

“Not fond of pubs?” 

Opening his mouth to respond, whatever Stefan’s about to say dies in his throat when the doors of the elevator open and some proper prick looking wrinkly businessmen on their way down wait for them to get into the lift. Instead, Stefan keeps it simple and says, “No,” before stepping on.

“Alright then.” Stepping on as well, Colin presses the close door button and forsakes anyone else that may have been just about to get on. He hears the soft, angry _‘Hey!’_ as they begin their descent, but the low hum of electricity in an otherwise silent, slow elevator is deafening. So, really, Colin can’t _not_ be obnoxious. “Anyway, Stefan, how are you liking it in the office so far?” He doesn’t even give him a fraction of a moment to consider his answer before jumping into his next question, “Actually, doesn’t matter, so what is it about pubs that you don’t like?”

Stefan side glances at him, confused for all intents and purposes, possibly embarrassed. A little awkward social interaction though is Colin’s idea of fun, so he’s not going to let him not answer. “Can we talk about this—”

“Later?” Interrupting him, a bit louder, “Absolutely not, let’s hear it. I want to know all of the gritty details. What’s it about pubs that turn you off? The miserable fucking corporate shareholder souls who go there day in and day out drinking their lives away at noon before going back to their jobs half in the barrel just to feel _something_ , anything, before going back home to their miserable lives? Screaming kids, stuck in a loveless marriage, possibly a closet homosexual but with an expensive mortgage to pay off and not enough willpower to change his own life. Respected member of his church, no doubt, can’t let that scandal get out—”

“ _Colin_ ,” a harsh whisper, “Quit it.” His eyes dart back and forth between Colin and the elevator guests who continue to stand as rigid as when they had first gotten on.

“Why, because we’ve got these pissy looking arseholes in here with us? Because I’m breaking elevator etiquette? I couldn’t care less about etiquette, _look_ ,” Colin says as he turns around, and he waves his hand in front of one of their faces. “According to the sacred, unbreakable elevator rules, I am breaking quite a few. I’m bothering people, I’m facing backward from the door, we’re gossiping, I’m getting into other people’s personal space…What else?”

“ _Seriously_ , stop it.” Hands shaking at his side as he says it, raising his voice and sounding _so_ troubled.

“Or _what_?” The emphasis is in how Colin laughs it out, catching Stefan’s eyes as he turns his head. He’s been speaking in the same even tone as he normally did until now, but Colin can’t help laughing now. “Do you think any of this matters? It doesn’t, Stefan.”

“You’re being—”

“I could shit off in the corner of this lift right now, just drop my pants and do it. The only thing that’s stopping me is I don’t have to shit right now.”

The businessmen have not moved, not even once. Not even to breathe. They have not blinked, not a hair on their heads have waved with the ventilation fan just above their heads whirling quietly. Always dirty with balled up dust. Had the fans ever been clean? Even once?

Do the people in elevators ever _actually_ exist? 

Are they **real**?

The doors of the lift open on another floor, and Stefan looks at him, panicked at the possibility of anyone else walking in on this.

“Take the next one,” Colin sort of barks out, loud and amused and still looking straight forward as he hits the elevator close button, followed immediately by the emergency stop button between floors when it had started descending again. 

It’s a bit muffled—the air in general. _Sounds_. 

The lights flicker, and Colin grabs onto the sleeve of one of the businessmen, picking him up as if he were as light as a cardboard cutout. He waves the bloke around a bit more before setting him down, smoothing out the wrinkle in his tie as a courtesy. “Stefan. What is it about pubs that you don’t like?”

“Colin what the _fuck_ is this?” Stefan gasps out, stepping back until he hits the wall, hands on the seams of metal between the wood paneling of the elevator. He’s breathing heavily, as if not getting enough air, and Colin can see his heart racing underneath layers of clothing.

“This is ａ ｇｌｉｔｃｈ.” The word feels fuzzy as it comes out of his mouth, sounding in his ears like an old stereo speaker that had gotten wet and short circuited but your uncle swore he could fix them but it just sounds washed out and damn near bass boosted. “This is ａｎｙｔｈｉｎｇ you want it to be.”

Like a baby deer in headlights, absolutely mesmerizing.

The businessmen topple over and deflate very suddenly, as if their bones and organs had disappeared completely, leaving behind a sickly puddle of skin and cloth that Colin kicks to the side, stopping only to pick up one of their gold watches and puts it on his wrist. Whichever old fuck it belonged to wouldn’t need it anymore anyway. Not in the void.

They are alone.

Had they always been alone?

The time on the watch display is: 11:59:56

Stefan looks about four seconds from freaking completely out. 

Three.

Two.

 _One_.

“Have I ｏ̸ｖ͜͏ｅ͘ｒ͡҉͠ｄ̶̧ｏ̵͘ｎ̶̶̨ｅ͝ it Ｓｔｅｆａｎ? Is this ｔｏｏ ｍｕｃｈ?” His tongue is heavy with static, but it’s all fine and nothing Colin can’t handle… could ever say it never bothered him in the first place.

“H-How are you doing all of this? How the _fuck_ is this happening?” Stefan looks on the floor, skin and expensive cloth fizzling as it dissolved into the cheap, chipped, yellowing tile forgotten about during the building renovation. 

「The ｑｕэｓｔｉｏｎ is a҉ćtua͜l̷l͝y тhis。 **Why** are yою here in this グリッチ？」

“What does that even _mean_?” 

“Ｓｏｒｒｙ,” Colin says, banging on his head with the heel of his palm, producing a sound like someone was hitting the hard plastic of a telly. “Сейчас? No,” and again, hitting his head with the heel of his palm, echoing back with the sound of junk crashing around a rusty toolbox. “The wires get crossed, and now we’ve gone and fucked it up proper and we’ll have to try again.”

It’s his own fault, really. Exposing the crack in reality like this when he hadn’t even warned Stefan.

“You need to tell me what this is.”

“Stefan you _know_ what this is, deep down, you _know_ and you _remember_ ,” Colin says, stepping finally in front of Stefan in a poor show of etiquette. One hand goes to his chest, over his heart, trying to get him to calm down. The other goes to his neck, thumb over his pulse point as he tries to ground him. “You know about the code, I _told_ you about the ｃｏｄｅ. If you listen closely, everything is made of code, and you can hear the numbers. Once you hear the numbers, _nothing_ can control you anymore. Can’t program and control a ｇｌｉｔｃｈ.”

There’s a moment where Stefan turns beet red, a moment that Colin savors as he watches his eyes dart back and forth from looking down to his chest, to the side, into Colin’s eyes. Stefan licks his lips, and it is absolutely _mesmerizing_.

“I know this is a lot to handle, Stef, but mate, if you’re going to open your eyes, you need to do it _completely_. If you are unsatisfied with your paths, only you can fix it. I have no idea how many people out there are like us, where they can do whatever the fuck _this_ is, but you are only the second person I’ve met who has this ability too. You can exploit it, and you have exploited it, and you will continue to exploit it until we meet our fucking _makers_. But you have to let it happen, and you can’t be scared.” Stated factually, nodding his head with the break in the last bit. Stefan’s attention is right on him, that’s not even a question, he just needs to know if he _understands_. That he knows exactly what Colin is talking about.

“How do I control this?” 

_Finally_.

Breathing out in relief, Colin takes on an even more serious tone, “I can help you Stefan, but _you_ are the one in charge. You can’t be controlled by anyone else ever again. Whatever fucking omnipresent fuck-off being is watching you can’t pull your strings. Sometimes you will let the timelines play out, and sometimes you won’t, but it is now up to you to make your own choices in all of your realities.” Jumping from consciousness to consciousness along time. Letting his own story play out.

“I don’t know if I can,” Stefan says as his hands finally move from the wood paneling of the elevator that is rapidly disintegrating into dust that vanishes into nothing.

They stand alone in the void as the hum of the flickering lights fades away. Face to face, rather, as much as they can be with the bit of height off between them. “You can. You are here, now, with me, and I can do it too. But I want you to do it, I want you to choose what happens from here.”

Stefan’s hands grab onto his wrists, gently tugging them down. But instead of letting his hands go completely, Stefan distinctly, purposefully threads their fingers together on both hands, albeit in an awkward position. “It’s my choice?”

“It’s your choice,” Colin says as he nods, squeezing Stefan’s hands gently. He expected Stefan’s hands to be clammy, or maybe sweaty and gross. Instead, they’re warm, and his grip firm. Kind of bony though, but magnificent to hold. 

“Alright. Then, I want to go to lunch with you, and I want to answer your question. I don’t like pubs because my father is always talking about the pub. ‘Went down to the pub for lunch Stefan’ or ‘Be home late, stopping at the pub after work’ and the like. I hate it,” breathed out seemingly all at once without breaking eye contact.

It’s a different answer than expected, but somehow, it’s not surprising. He wonders what other issues there are with Stefan’s father, but there will be time for that later, it can be buried under the rug for now. “Noted, no pubs for us. Anything else you’d like to decide before we head back?” 

“I’m set,” Stefan says as Colin lets his hands go. “Alright then, do I just—”

One.

Two.

 _Three_.

Four legs on the ground was the proper amount of legs for a chair that had four legs. Being on two was dangerous enough as it is, but as all delinquent kids at the back of the class knew, it was more fun balancing on two. Of course, there was always a chance of falling backward like a dunce and cracking your head open. Not a fun way to go, and Colin sometimes accidentally has gotten irreparable noggin damage that either left him dead or left him in coma. Neither of which were fun at all. 

Fortunately, the moment Colin’s gut churns at the imbalance of gravity, Stefan arrives at his side and catches the back. It makes him jump, feet back down on the ground as he spits out a quiet, “ _Fuck_. Christ.” Deep breath. “Stef, you’re a lifesaver, yeah?”

“Gotta be careful with leaning.”

“Right, yeah. I was lightyears away,” Colin says, twisting in place and cracking his back in the process. “Aching like a granny over here now, Christ.” Bones finished popping like geriatric, Colin tilts his head back and looks up at Stefan. “What time is it now?” 

It’s a _very_ bold move for Stefan to reach down over his shoulder and grab Colin by his watch, pulling his arm up so he can look down at the clock face. “About ten to noon.”

Colin keeps his arm up for comedic effect, turning his wrist to look as he says, “So it is.” The gold glints in the rare rays of sunlight poking through the clouds, blinding him momentarily when he catches the reflection. “Got any plans?”

“Can we grab lunch? Missed breakfast for the bus.”

“...Sure.”

It’s familiar, but not too familiar. But not too not familiar either. 

Something feels off. Not in a bad way, but in an advanced stage of deja-vu way that Colin knows to associate exclusively with a looped back thread back to somewhere in a timeline. “So where we headed for lunch?”

“Isn’t there that shop with the counter just around the corner?”

“Almost like you read my mind,” Colin says, lighting up a cigarette before he stands up and they head to the elevator and press the button. “Anyway, we can talk some Bandersnatch if you’d like. I never got a chance to pick at your brain.”

The lift dings and the doors open after a moment, both of them getting into the empty cab. Stefan presses the button for the lobby before he leans his back against the wall on the side of the button panel. “I wanted to ask you about how you said that you had gotten all of the endings.”

They are alone.

The weight of the watch is strange on his wrist; he must have been stoned when he’d gotten it. Yet at the same time, he can’t ever remember a time he didn’t have it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I 100% forgot last chapter to say that there would be some text that's bound to break screen readers, and unfortunately that is also the case with this chapter. My text choices are for aesthetics which kind of kills accessibility so let me know if it's getting to be too much.
> 
> That said, this one came a bit later than I wanted to, but here it is! Also, I have bumped the rating way up with this one for very good reasons. Content warnings for mildly disturbing descriptions of death and related imagery, for unreality, for unhealthy thinking, for sexual situations, etc. Nothing too horrible per usual but just in case anyone needs a warning to brace themselves, here's your heads up :^)
> 
> Thanks to everyone for all the super kind words so far, I love u. 
> 
> Catch me on twitter @ somegarbageisok or on tumblr @ jennyloggins !!!

Lunch had been an interesting affair, all said and done. Stefan had laid out the main paths of Bandersnatch, and Colin had been quick to respond to each branch as they’d been mentioned. He’d read the book, of course, and he’d gotten every ending there was and he had done every combination of story that there was. An absolute visionary, Jerome F. Davies was. 

A proper chat over a couple of sandwiches and a basket of chips between them; they’re out for lunch much longer than intended, but Thakur doesn’t give a fuck as long as there’s some finished products on the due dates and some project updates along the way. One on one, the stress left behind for a moment, Stefan is… very charming. Quietly charismatic when he can talk about something he’s passionate about. Hyperfocusing and infodumping and discussing their theories together to the point where Stefan has to grab a napkin and borrow Colin’s pen to write down some gems to try and work into the game.

Up until now, Colin had only seen Stefan be miserable. Everything about him had been a ticking time bomb to disaster, brought on by a lack of affection and understanding. At lunch, he had smiled, and he’d laughed, and Colin had been completely enamored. Smiling around a half soggy chip shoved in his mouth, laughing as they had come up with another obscure little tidbit from toward the start that would affect something far down the paths. Still shy, still kind of quiet, but it was clear that some sort of healthy social interaction was what Stefan really needed to come out of his shell.

He’s _proud_ of him for coming so far and for making the decision to help himself and change his own destiny. Choosing to not be controlled anymore. 

Which, all of that in mind, made it all the more fucked up that Colin is spending tonight tripping out of his mind, jerking off like the world is ending. It’s not currently, but his hand and his cock have no way of knowing that. He feels like he’s floating, the room swirling around him as he spreads his legs a bit more. The T-shirt he had been wearing is missing, but his overshirt is still on somehow, unbuttoned and making him look just that much more lewd. 

Stefan, smiling, half hidden by his hand as he wiped at his mouth with it. Looking right at him. Genuinely happy.

_He’s smiling right at him_.

Sitting in a chair at a tiny table in the back in a dingy little corner restaurant. 

Sitting on his couch flipping through a magazine as they climb the high together. 

Colin is smiling right at Stefan.

Talking Bandersnatch. Taking a break from Bandersnatch.

It all blends together as Colin breathes hard, his own hand grabbing his throat and squeezing to cut off the airflow, gently at first then a bit tighter as he goes. His skin is _so_ sensitive that even the bit of nighttime air from the balcony door being cracked is making him shiver. The thousands of hands all belonging to Stefan also making him shiver.

On his face. On his body. Around his neck, choking him until he’d died. Killing him. It’s hot, thinking about it. Of Stefan’s billions of iterations that had touched him for any reason at all. 

He can remember, very faintly, the touch of smooth lips against his own chapped ones after they had gone cold. Warmth spreading into him as he’d woken up months before again. He can remember every touch it seems. Holding hands, Stefan feeling for a pulse, getting kissed before he’d fallen off the balcony.

Colin feels like he’s made of clay, like some absolute madman is sitting around with a camera setup and moving him millimeter by millimeter and taking pictures to make a stop motion video. He’s sweating, and he can feel Stefan’s hands in his hair, on his face. Marveling at him, seeing spots on his skin and barely understanding a word he’s said. He can feel the universe posing them together, touching each other, taking pictures and scattering them onto the floor and jumbling the scenes back together.

It’s his own hand moving on himself, pleasuring himself and making his breath hitch as his head rolls back on the chair. The music in the background is at a whisper in comparison to the blood rushing around in his body. He can feel his pulse in his dick, and he can feel Stefan’s pulse as they stand together as Colin imparts the knowledge upon him a million times over. 

He can feel breath against his skin, lips and teeth against his throat, and it’s fucking _invigorating_. It’s a memory that’s far too distant, but it’s there nonetheless. It means at some point, they had fooled around. Or maybe it means that Stefan had gone crazy and cannibalized him after killing his father went awry and Colin had been so unfortunate to step into his house just hours after the murder. Something about imbibing his idol’s very essence, his blood and flesh as an entirely batshit insane way of going about an intimate form of worship. Not that Colin would have been around after being murdered, but somewhere, out there, in some universe, Stefan had done so if he could imagine it.

An incredibly un-sexy way of thinking as Colin tugs at his knob, thinking of Stefan taking him into his mouth and swallowing him until there’s nothing left. He’s not sure if he means that his body had been made into mince or if it’s his jizz, but it’s all a jumble of fucked up excitement in his head in any right. Stefan has every right to fuck around with reality as Colin himself does. As Kitty does. They all have their own infinite paths alone, and then infinite paths twining together in odd ways. So if Stefan wanted to suck his cock or kill him and ritualistically eat his decaying corpse, well… He wouldn’t be the one to stop him. Couldn’t, especially if it was the latter. No coming back from being dead in a timeline.

Well, except for the part where Colin is alive in a trillion instances. Really, they can do whatever they want, and it’s not a god complex at work that has Colin on some kind of power trip, they really _can_. With that in mind, they’re not built for purely happy endings it seems, most of them are depressing in their own right to cause it all to cycle back. At least, it seems Stefan hasn’t had his own yet, whereas Colin has experienced some for sure. So maybe this time really is different, maybe some sort of arrangement with the universe could be made to make this work out for real this time.

Or maybe the walls will start melting, the drugs doing their damndest to fuck him up proper right now. Really, it feels like the only way to cope with the responsibility of being a contributing member of society, being able to sit and feel every cell in his body come alight with hyper-awareness. Where fucking his fist feels like he’s been possessed by the spirit of every person that had ever been or ever will be on planet Earth that had ever fucked before. Horny beyond words for the concept of being intimate with someone that he knows is in love with him in every respect. 

Colin is _literally_ floating, soft hitches of his breath mingled with muted groans as he desperately seeks his completion. His cock feels like it might just be tugged off if he keeps going like this, but there’s no stopping. Not when his socked feet are skittering on the floor, not when he feels like he can’t breathe—he _can’t_ breathe. Lightheaded and realizing now that he had never let go of his own neck, the grip getting tighter and tighter until his lungs feel like they’re going to _pop_.

This feels like an out of body experience, like he’s watching himself above himself, crushing his own windpipe to ramp up the sensitivity. It’s unfortunately _working_ , but he can’t fucking _breathe_ , and if he doesn’t let go of his throat that might just be the end of the road for him. Yet it feels like it would be insane to stop now when he’s dizzy from the rush of hormones and endorphins. Head swimming with it all, vision darkening around the edges. His heart rate is slowing down, going lower and lower as the air stops circulating and thus the blood. Colin can feel the invigorating sensation of his cells dying one by one, slowly. Causing him to be sluggish, but it takes all of his concentration left to keep his hand going.

His orgasm hits like a ten tonne truck, smashing into him as he gasps for air that doesn’t make it to his lungs. It’s too little too late when his hand falls limp to his side, fading even faster as the drugs and the release wreaks havoc on his surviving brain cells, giving him a sense of euphoria that he’s going to feel in the grave. That is, if he can make it to his own funeral before his cum dries on his cooling skin and before the big rewind. 

Or possibly instead, Stefan comes to lie down with him, sneaking into the coffin just before he is put into the ground at the old family plot. Hiding in the closed casket, getting buried with him, suffocating with him and into death. The game is released months later by people who absolutely cannot do the novel justice, and the rating is abysmal. It is clear that the title is forced out, rushed because the stakes were too high to not put it out thanks to Thakur’s advertising. Stefan is never found after he goes missing. Tuckersoft goes under before Daniel has a chance to be hired and before he can go missing. One life saved, at least.

Laying together in a wooden box that decomposes much faster than intended due to the addition of an unprepared body. Laying in darkness as the vivid memory plays out from Colin’s bones of a mortician pulling a bag of organs out of his chest cavity after his cadaver had been delivered from the police autopsy lab. Colin had been drained of his bodily fluids and flushed out completely before being embalmed, but Stefan had not had that luxury. The excess of moisture after being buried from an unprepared body that had called shotgun in the casket made sure that even the polished wood stood no chance to the worms. The casket has rotted through in record time, dirt filling in their empty meat cages that will remain entwined together.

Their bones grow mossy together after time has stopped, after the big decay—consumed by bacteria until their time ravaged skeletons are all that’s left. When centuries have passed and the earth grinds up their bones after climate change has killed off all humans, they provide nutrients to the sapling of a gorgeous bush of roses as the world regulates herself. They can grow ancient together, supporting a new, kinder ecosystem free from the dangers of the greed of humankind. Undeniably a much more beautiful end that could have never been imagined for a path that was thought to be ruined from the start. 

Well, the earth ends quite dreadfully, actually. Somewhere, the last surviving copy of Bandersnatch on some harddrive of some digital hoarder from the year 2019 lays in a box in a box in a large plastic container with a lid on it, shrink wrapped and high off the floor, in a vault in a bunker that had been unopened for thousand, if not millions and billions of years, untouched by air and rust and somehow defying all odds of decay and ruin to stay completely intact is finally consumed in the fiery explosion of the sun as it enters the last phase of its life. Becoming a red giant as the center of the solar system, she has finally used up all of her hydrogen and burns whatever is leftover. The earth is burnt to a crisp, quite magnificently, actually; the sun expands and swallows the planet whole before contracting back into herself to sleep for good. There is beauty in destruction which is perhaps the lesson that Stefan had been trying to teach the world all those eons ago.

The world ends, and their matron star becomes a hunk of leftover rock that is heated to around 28,000 degrees Celsius and from there cools until it is truly dead. Something that takes billions of years and something that has always happened, and will happen, and will continue to happen even when the local nebular neighborhood ceases.

The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies collide, and our little neighborhood is smashed to bits once again by some impossible to imagine stellar object that scatters the dust back into space where it becomes part of the cycle.

Breathing old life into new life, feeding the stellar nursery with old organic matter from places that time has forgotten.

The dust gathers, and swirls in the cosmic vacuum, pulling together as gravity takes hold. Compacting and compacting until the star forms, bright and ready to separate from her siblings as the dust is depleted, grabbing up any that remains into her grasp. Absolutely unfathomably ancient clumps of dust that refused to part even in death. Forming ne͡w̢ ҉pl͞a͜n͠et͘s̷, and n͢͏͠e̕̕͡w̴̛ ̧͟l̶̕i͏̨͏fe as organisms begin to thrive in the primordial soup of the origins of mankind—

 

 

The b̷ǫd͏y̵ is found hours too late, according to the police reports. 

 

［ＴＲＡＮＳＣＲＩＰＴＩＯＮ］

August 1st, 1984, in the early hours of the morning, K̙̠̭̝̼͚A̧҉̪͔̯̰̤͖͝T̢͖̣̘̙̟͡H̥̩̝͇̥E̴̤̠̖͍͉R̷̵͓I̱̯͇̪N̷͏̦̕E͇̺̪͔̟̕͟ͅ Ritman found the body of her late husband Colin in the living room. The cause of death was determined to be illegal substance related; there was no foul play detected at the scene. When questioned, Katherine told officers she was unaware that there were dangerous substances in the flat with their newborn around. A full investigation is to be launched.

Colin Ritman is known in the home computer and console video games industry as a prodigy. Having started coding at a young age, he turned to creating electronic entertainment in a budding industry that has far surpassed market expectations. Always pushing the limits on what we thought video games could be. The recent success of M̴e̵̕҉ţ͝l̡ ̡̕͜H̡͟ȩd̷ put recently founded video game development company TUCKERSOFT on the map; a statement issued from the CEO Mohan Thakur attributes their success to him. 

“He was like the nutrients added to the soil of a rose bush in a mum’s garden. Absolutely tragic, it won’t be the same around here, and I can only hope this company can move on in his honor. It will be hard to find anyone who can fill his shoes, don’t know if anyone can.”

Colin is described as a bit odd, but very bright and funny. He was a joy to be around for those that knew him. His funeral is taking place at 

 

a̸̓ͧͧ̾ͧ͆ͧ̆̓̃͊͘͠҉̱̝͙͎̪̲ ̛̯̝͍̹̺̲̝̣̟̬̙͓̗̖ͤ̆̈́͊̄͊ͭͨ̾c̋͌̏͂ͫͬ̒ͤ͛̓̃̾̅͏̸̛̜̳͉̜͍̟͇͔̤͕̹̪̱̞͚̹͠ḩ͈͉͚̹̙̱̜̣̩̭̐ͦ̓̅̓̇ͧ͗̊̍ͦ̀̀͐͡ư̧͓̻͍͇̮̠͙̦̒͐͋̏͊̎ͣ͗̈́̊̓͑̃̾̽̅̌̄͟͞͝r͗͒̓̏͋̒̍̏͌̏͗ͭ̿̀҉̯̜͙͇̮̩̠̼͙̮̰̪͎͖ͅͅč̛̲͈͇͕̬͇̝̐͌̽̓͌ͥ͞͞h̢̬͉̱̬̯͇̓ͬ̉̀ͪ̈ͯ͑͐͘

 

on

 

ḁ̧̥̪͉̤̙͕̝͇̣͔̟͔͇͗̾̓̉́̉̐̈́͛̿̽̃̃͟͝͡ͅ ̾̅ͧ̆̐ͯ̑͑̇̿ͮ͗҉̵̶̛̠̹̺̺̹̫̬̖͉͔̘̪͔͞sͨ̎͑̈́̄͛̔̀̐̉̀̑͆ͤ̃͂̓͑̎͏̢̭̖̭̱̲̞̻̩͎̳̠̟̲̞̘̮͜͠ͅt̄ͤ̎̃̾̃͋̿҉̣͍̗̣̘̗̗̩͟͝͠r̓̄ͯ́̅̃̈͑͆͐̚҉͠͏̡͎̜̥͙̦̰͉̩͉̻̤̖͜ͅę̵̶̙͕̘͍̯̘͕͔̫̻̗͎̲̦̋̈́ͬ̋̄̄͂ͧ̂̄͊̿̀͟ͅe̷͇̳͖̭̬͗̇̾͂̅ͮͣ̓͂ͬͣ̍̈́̋̽͑̃̕t̴̵͉̦͕͚͙͖̮͚̖̯̪̣̜̩̤̮͗ͦ̿ͮ̆̿̽̓̈́̑ͣͥͥ̂ͦ̈́ͣ͊͢

 

in

 

 

ạ̧̛̺̠̮͓̤̪̝̮̥͎̝͔͇̞̩́̀̍̈́̆̑ͩ͂̃̈́͑ͯ́ͬ̚͘͡ ̯̭̩̞̖͍̈́̇̐̚t̶̋ͣͫͣͦͧͥͬ̋̈́̿ͦ̐̿̓̎ͮ͝҉̝̫͔̘̰o̸̴̖͇̱͎̪̰̥̟̥̩ͪ͐̅̀̚ͅw̨̪̜̫̝͓͓̙͍̱͕̩͈͉̭͕̩̜̬̿̉ͥn̛̍ͨͦ͗̊̾ͥ͑ͧ͊̾̀ͣ̌͂͗̍҉҉̘̣͈͔̟͖͘

 

at

 

 

aͭͬ̾̊ͯͯ҉͟҉̥̖͙̻̻̮̼̹̥͕ͅ ̶̧̛ͨ̾͐̍̿ͩ̐ͭ̽͆ͯ̋͂ͫ҉̖͎͖̖̖͈̟͈̠̪̖̭͈̖͙̠t̴̟̫̟̖͍͓̥̗̺͎̰̤̺̪͈̠̪̳ͣ̿ͫ̾ͪ͛̊͊ͪ͑̾̆̾̄͊̒͢ị̸̣̯̘͇̙͚̼̩̬͐ͭ͂̎͒̿̏̐̅̍̇̎ͤ͒̓͆͜͠m̸̧̢̯̩̞̼̙̲̦̭̙̭̱͉̟̓ͣ̅̽̾e̢̤̣̟̘̖̣͍͖͈̙͎̱͇̠̜̞̣ͨͯ̌ͨ̅͊̆̾ͪͬ̊̚͜͜ͅ

 

.

He is survived by his wife and his newborn daughter P͖̙̻̝ͬ͋̍ͥ̎̾ḛ̹̺̾ͯ̔̈́́̌ͯ̂ͭ͐̎̚a̗̰̯͇̙̖̱̪̞̺͇̰̳̯̥͇͕ͤͨ͗͗͆͊̿ͫ̋ͫ̽̌̄͂͌̚r̭̭̭͓͕͙̤͎̥̙̘̮̱͔͍̒̿ͤ̂̇ͧ̉ͨ̊́ͥ̾̅̊̓ͧ̃ͧͅl͎͖͚̩̟̠̻̤͇̞̜͉̦̾ͩ̃̏͋̏ͮ̍̆ͩ͊.

 

 

 

Four.

 

Three.

 

Two.

 

One.

Colin chokes as he wakes up with a start, full body shuddering as he begins coughing, so disoriented that he has no idea what’s going on or who he is for a moment. But it all comes back to him as he feels the warm touch of his love, arm draped across his side and hand rubbing at his back while the covers fall around them. 

“I was there this time, and it was beautiful.”

It’s enough to make his eyes water as he finally gains control of his breathing, but it’s dark and he can’t exactly see. Sometimes it can take a few hours for his vision to come back, nothing to be too alarmed about since he is not alone currently. Thankfully. 

It’s still got him off balance as all fuck though, and he takes comfort in outstretched arms, being hushed as he catches his breath.

“We were all that was left, and from us, we came back to ourselves again. It took a while, but here we are.”

Voice gentle, but unrecognizable. Familiar and before now Colin can’t remember a time he had ever heard it like this. 

Spindly fingers on his skin, turning him over onto his side so he can come face to face with his love. He’s got a hand on his chest over his racing heart, his head is tucked up underneath their chin as they ground him back into reality. 

It almost feels like he’s still high, skin sensitive and body borderline floating. Once he gets his breathing under control, he reaches up to take their face into his hands, pulling them down into a grateful, slow kiss. Feeling some kind of needy and clingy right now after waking up like this. Having spent so long dormant, being able to move is a miracle. Touching someone else and feeling it with his own skin, breathing with another person, it’s been _too_ long. 

Eternity had not been lonely with the company he had kept, but it had certainly been a touch boring. Atoms and neurons and blood and tissue and muscle and bone and flesh and consciousness working together to wake him up, kissing harder and tossing a bit of tongue into the mix. A proper kiss that makes him moan as hands start roaming his skin.

Colin is absolutely in love with being touched and reminded that he’s alive. That time brought him back to his own body and back to his circumstances, back to a lover that is peeling his shirt off and tossing it off to be forgotten. Kissing his neck, his chest, teasingly grazing his nipples with their tongue and teeth, down to his stomach. Confident hands peeling down his pyjama flannels and his underwear so that Colin can kick them off. One sock catches on fabric while he has to toe the other one off, making his partner laugh pretty right up against his cock. 

There’s little warning before warm, freshly wetted lips press to the shaft, less warning before the tongue comes out and drags up to the tip from the base. He’s a goner once his love takes him into their mouth. It’s better than usual, with his sensitivity still ramped right up, but this time with a much better outlet for his desperate, horny energy. This time his breathing is interrupted by appreciative groans, and he is trying to be polite and not fuck into the mouth on him.

He can feel his legs being manipulated, pushed up the mouth comes off of his cock and moves down, tonguing at his testicles, moving lower until he feels his hole being tongued. It’s _hot_ , makes him whimper and _ache_ for more, especially when it pushes inside. Immediately, it’s not enough, and his lover knows that, knows _him_ and his needs. Knows how to finger him open, knows how to turn him into a writhing mess in the sheets in record time. Colin can’t breathe now because they do that _thing_ with their tongue between their fingers and it’s got him moaning out a surprised little laugh that makes his partner smile and do it again.

And again.

And _again_.

Until Colin shudders, until he’s just about to blow, until his blood is rushing around his head so hard he’s dizzy, hips bucking around and cock so hard that a gentle breeze might do the trick.

That’s when they pull away, kissing his thighs gently as he’s so cruelly teased. Near quaking for release and denied. They get up off the bed, leaving Colin to cool off for a beat of time. He has no idea how long he’s left on the sheets, but it’s long enough to get antsy. Craving to touch and to be touched and to feel _alive_. 

By the time his love gets back, it feels like another hundred billion years have passed. Crucially, they’ve come back with lube, thank fucking Christ. He’s fingered again, up to three fingers before he has to _beg_ , “Enough, _please_ get the fuck on with it.”

“You’re such a whiner, Col.”

“Wouldn’t whinge if you’d hurry up already.”

Pause.

The gentlest chuckle that makes Colin’s heart beat hard in his chest, dizzy from affection. Truly wishing this moment would never end when he gets a kiss that makes living the same fragmented reality infinite times over worth it. For just this one moment, knowing he is in love. 

With who?

It doesn’t matter as he feels the familiar stretch of his hole, deeper as his lover sinks in. Colin’s synapses fire off with record amounts of pleasure information swirling all over his body, skin hot and breathing heavy and reaching up to drag his lover closer. Euphoric, and happy, and knowing that nothing can go wrong. 

The sound around him starts to fade slowly, and he doesn’t notice at first. Not until the sounds of him being fucked and the lewd sounds of flesh contact start to turn into a dull ringing—Dull ringing into the sounds of his labored breathing, slowing down even as bodies sought pleasure in one another.

Ticking.

The sound of even, methodical ticking.

Colin’s vision swimming as he cracks open his eyes finally, vision blurry without his g͐͋̔̓҉ľ͋͆̔ͤ͊̂ͬ̌͟͡ã̶̧̽̔̀͌̎sͥ̈͒̓͟s̆̐ͫ̏͆̃eͧ͜͜ş̛̏͟.

It takes him a second to come into focus on the arm next to his head, the petite wrist close enough for him to admire. A wrist sporting a ludicrously nice watch.

Blink.

A wrist sporting some slightly tarnished bracelets.

Colin closes his eyes, laying back instead and enjoying the feeling of his partner’s ragged breathing as he’s fucked harder. 

It feels like he’s being ｓｐｌｉｔ in ｈａｌｆ。

At his core, in his head. He’s got a killer headache quite suddenly, as if someone was gripping his brain from the inside and pulling him apart at the seams. 

Something is w̖̱̬̭͚̫̠r̤̯̩͕̳͚͔o͈̝̦̭̱̦͈n͉̼g.

Isn’t it always?

In the background, in his head and in his body. Something is wrong, but Colin holds on as long as he can, long enough to feel like his orgasm is going to obliterate him. Grabbing onto his lover and digging his fingers into flesh and moaning and moving his hips and feeling like each individual proton and neutron and electron in his body is a tiny galaxy made of a billion stars that were all exploding in tandem. 

It feels like the hand of whatever God fearing Sunday churchgoing arsehole thinks God is, reaching into his core and tearing him in two, going still as he cums. One half of his consciousness is flung into the arms of the void seemingly while the other half remains. A thunderous affair that slams him back into reality as the sound filters back in.

Missing part of himself, yet he is whole.

A usual Saturday night as he gets gentle kisses while jizz is cooling on his stomach. Colin is shaking, just a little bit, but overall feeling incredible as he comes down from his high. Kitty is above him, fucking him slowly through the aftershocks. 

She already knows what’s happened here by the way she pulls out and takes the strap-on off, cleaning him up and tugging him close. As alway, too good for him and knowing exactly what comfort he needs right now. So he lays there with her, head on her chest as the sweat cools and as they breathe and wind down together.

After a while, while Kitty is still raking her fingers through Colin’s hair, he musters up the strength to say, “Feel a bit like shit that I didn’t get you off.”

“I’m kind of miffed, but I’ll survive,” she says, kissing his crown. “You can return the favor when you’ve recovered, or if you fall asleep first, in the morning.”

Far too good for him, always knew exactly what he needed and so selflessly gave it to him nearly all the time. And right now, he needed to lay here and get his wits back about him, recover before the start of the work week. Fuck if Colin even knew what day it was, actually.

From there it is easy enough to fall asleep, but the next time he wakes up, he is alone in bed with the smell of roses. His whole body is still, and the static is dripping back into his consciousness. Coffee, a smoke, and possibly another go at dying and letting the world end only to reborn again, that might do it. Maybe this time he could come back not feeling like a damned geriatric.

When he’s dressed and finally makes his way out to the kitchen, he hears the clink of metal against glass as Kitty asks, “Really, who blends carrots and boiled chicken?”

“A sadist who gets off on puréeing together the most bland foods possible in the name of sound nutrition,” Colin says as he crouches down closer to Pearl’s level, at Kitty’s side. “I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t want to eat it. Certainly won’t make her grow up big and strong like her mum is.” 

Kitty smirks as she clinks the jar again, stirring the contents. “Well thank you, darling. Anyway, it’s horrid, but can’t exactly serve her something easy like cereal until she’s got teeth I think the pediatrician said.”

“Come on now Pearlie, it’s not so bad,” Colin says, opening his mouth and giving Kitty a side glance to get her on board his scheme for the thousandth time.

The devil’s breakfast, such a pivotal moment for no reason. 

He leaves a few seconds earlier than normal with the taste of baby food still in his mouth even after downing a cup of coffee and with a cigarette lit up and being sucked down.   
It’s a mystery, what time it _actually_ is right now, but he manages to catch the elevator up as he enters the building main vestibule. The door is held for him by some prick that’s hidden from view with a fancy watch that catches the glint of fluorescent in just the right way to blind him as he walks up. Whatever comment he’s about to make though dies in his throat, smirking when he sees Stefan leaning the wrong way against the wall. If anything, Colin is glad he instilled the disregard for elevator etiquette.

“Good morning,” said politely as usual, but there’s the contained smile that is just _so_ sweet.

“Morning, mate. Nice watch you got there.” It looks familiar, though Stefan looks at his wrist with the seemingly same amount of puzzlement. “Where’d you get it?”

Silence, but Stefan jiggles his wrist around a bit while looking at it still before he says, “I _think_ it was a gift, can’t really remember.”

“Looks smart, it's good on you,” he says as the doors finally close and the elevator begins the world’s slowest climb. “Fuck’s sakes, you’d think in a newly reno’d building they’d have gotten the elevator to speed up.”

The quiet, muted chuckle from his lift-mate is exhilarating, deja-vu hitting him as he says, “You’re such a whiner, Col.”

“Wouldn’t whinge if this thing didn’t take so bloody long.” Puffing smoke out from around the butt of his cigarette, he moves to lean against the same side as Stefan. “So, got any plans later?”

Colin is expecting the great pause that is usual around decisions, but Stefan surprises him with an immediate (albeit a bit rushed), “No, actually. Why?”

No reason. Truly, Colin didn’t even _have_ a plan, feeling like a giddy teen about it. Fuck’s sake. “Block off your evening then, yeah?”

“As long as neither of us jump off a balcony this time.”

The words are barely out of Stefan’s mouth before Colin is laughing, fingers cradling his cigarette as he takes it out of his mouth. Cheeky. “No jumping this time, promise.”


End file.
